This selection from Joseph Stalin’s lectures onThe Foundations of Leninismis worth thinking about when evaluating such questions as whether or not proletarian revolutionaries should support anti-imperialist governments or liberation struggles, such as the Iranian government or the Afghan national resistance, which are not led by the proletariat or oriented towards socialism:

A meeting to mark V.I. Lenin’s 140th birthday (April 22) was held in Hanoi on April 21, to stress the everlasting value of his thoughts and cause as well as his significance to revolutionaries around the world and in Vietnam.

On addressing the meeting, Truong Tan Sang, Politburo member and Permanent Secretary to the Communist Party of Vietnam’s Central Committee, highlighted Lenin’s great contributions to the working class cause, the struggle against imperialism, the struggle for peace, independence and the freedom of nations throughout the world.

Lenin as the organiser and leader of the Russian Communist Party
April 23, 1920

There are two groups of Marxists. Both work under the flag of Marxism and consider themselves “genuinely” Marxist. Nevertheless, they are by no means identical. More, a veritable gulf divides them, for their methods of work are diametrically opposed to each other.

The following video presentation is from the UVU Revolutionary Students Union. The presenter gives a passionate defense of the Bolsheviks in the suppression of the ultra-left Kronstadt sailors rebellion. Be sure and watch the Q&A videos, which go beyond the Kronstadt rebellion to discuss the Bolsheviks’ struggle against the Makhnovites in the Ukraine:

I STUDIED the legal procedure in criminal cases in Soviet Russia somewhat carefully in 1932, and concluded (as published at the time in “Twelve Studies in Soviet Russia”) that the procedure gave the ordinal accused a very fair trial. Having learnt from my legal friends in Moscow on my return this summer that the principal changes realised or shortly impending were all in the direction of giving greater independence to the Bar and the judges and greater facilities to the accused, I was particularly interested to be able to attend the trial of Zinoviev and Kamenev and others which took place on August 1923.